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Have you been asked for your facebook password by a current or perspective employer?

I've read that an increasingly "popular" tactic by businesses is to require individuals to provide their facebook passwords as a condition of employment. First it was drug tests for everyone, which I can understand for some professions (astronaut, ship captain, rattlesnake milker, that sort of thing), but otherwise I find an infuriating, degrading and unnecessary process. Now the very concept of a modicum of privacy in one's private life outside of work is being erased. I reject the idea out of hand, in theory, but when employment is tight, the employer can essentially dictate whatever it wishes. The problem with this is that once Pandora's box is opened, it is nearly impossible to close the darn thing again. Have others experienced a request such as this, and if so what do you do when faced with it?

I have not, but I haven't been looking for a new position recently. I do know that this is a growing trend. The thing is, if you are unemployed and really need a job, and the company demands your facebook password as a condition of employment...what do you do? I personally would stop using facebook, delete my account move to Google+ until they start demanding that too. As the job market continues to improve it will be easier to tell companies that ask for it to take a hike, but right now employers can basically demand anything they want. I find it reprehensible that they would even ask, though, and I would be looking for a new job immediately. Has it gotten to the point that you can't even tell a private joke to friends on your own time without business reading it and judging whether you have crossed some arbitrary line? Corporation may have become "people" with the same rights to political speech as us lowly carbon based humans, but do we really want those "people" taking away the most basic expectation of privacy? I do not, but keep in mind there are many people that are out there arguing there should be little or no regulation of businesses, and that includes a lot of members of Congress, so I wouldn't look for any legal restrictions to what they can do in the near future. It seems like I've stepped into Aldous Huxley's Brave New World at time, and I don't care for it.

I'm a freelancer, so it's not an issue for me. However, if a company asked me for my Facebook password I'd let them know that I'm no longer interested in working for them. My Facebook page doesn't have anything bad or incriminating on it, but such behavior by a prospective employer would immediately eliminate them from consideration.

So companies should think very carefully before doing such things. They may find that valuable potential employees will not consider working for them. Sure, some companies won't care but others might and all good companies should care.

In some ways I'd consider it a blessing to have a prospective employer ask me something like that. It would tip me off immediately that they aren't a company I'd want to work for, and thus I would have probably dodged a bullet.

I'm a freelancer, so it's not an issue for me. However, if a company asked me for my Facebook password I'd let them know that I'm no longer interested in working for them. My Facebook page doesn't have anything bad or incriminating on it, but such behavior by a prospective employer would immediately eliminate them from consideration.

So companies should think very carefully before doing such things. They may find that valuable potential employees will not consider working for them. Sure, some companies won't care but others might and all good companies should care.

In some ways I'd consider it a blessing to have a prospective employer ask me something like that. It would tip me off immediately that they aren't a company I'd want to work for, and thus I would have probably dodged a bullet.